Bishop Strickland: Statement on the massacre in Nigeria
How long, O Lord? How long will the world remain silent as the blood of martyrs cries out from the soil of Africa?
Bishop Joseph
Strickland Bishop Joseph E. Strickland YouTube channel
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Tue Jun 17, 2025 - 5:15 am EDT
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Editor’s note: The following article was first published on Bishop Strickland’s Substack on June 16, 2025.
(LifeSiteNews) — My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
With a heart weighed down by sorrow and righteous anger, I join the Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV, in mourning the brutal massacre that took place in Benue State, Nigeria. Nearly 200 souls – many of them our own brothers and sisters in Christ, internally displaced and seeking refuge in the arms of the Church – were savagely slaughtered in Yelwata, Guma, during the night of June 13.
They were not soldiers. They were not armed. They were poor. They were vulnerable. And they were targeted.
Let us be absolutely clear: this was not merely a tragedy. It was a targeted massacre of innocent Christians, many of whom had already lost everything. And they were murdered while under the shelter of the Church.
How long, O Lord? How long will the world remain silent as the blood of martyrs cries out from the soil of Africa?
We cannot look away. We cannot remain silent.
READ: Bishop Strickland: Statement on the conflict between Israel and Iran
To the faithful of Benue – especially the survivors: we see you. We grieve with you. And we stand with you. The Body of Christ is one. When one member suffers, all suffer. Your blood is the seed of faith; your perseverance is a rebuke to the comfortable; your tears are mingled with the tears of Our Lady, who stood at the foot of the Cross.
I call on the Nigerian government to fulfill its sacred duty: to protect the innocent and punish the wicked. Justice delayed is justice denied. And when Christians are slaughtered in their hundreds with impunity, it is not only a failure of governance – it is a scandal before Heaven.
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I call on governments around the world, especially in the West, to open their eyes to this ongoing persecution. Christian blood is being spilled in Nigeria with alarming regularity – and yet, the world’s conscience remains dormant.
Let us not be numbered among those who looked away. Let us not be the priest or the Levite who passed by on the other side. No. Let us be the Samaritan. Let us kneel in prayer. Let us fast in reparation. Let us raise our voices and demand truth, justice, and peace.
To my fellow shepherds in the episcopate: if we do not cry out now, we are complicit in the silence.
May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. May the Sacred Heart of Jesus, pierced and bleeding still, hold the martyrs of Benue close. And may the Immaculate Heart of Mary wrap the survivors in her mantle of consolation.
Let us pray:
“Deliver me from the hand
of mine enemies, and from them that persecute me.”
— Psalm 30:16
Eternal rest grant unto
them, O Lord.
And let perpetual light shine
upon them.
May justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.
In Christ our King,
Bishop Joseph E. Strickland
TOPICS
TAGGED AS
- Benue
- Bishop Joseph Strickland
- Christian Martyrs
- Christian Persecution
- Christianity
- Joseph Strickland
- Martyrdom
- Martyrs
- Nigeria
- Yelwata
